The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is to review services provided by stock exchanges as part of wider efforts by the regulator to promote competition in the financial sector.

A three-month consultation by the FCA’s markets division into the competitive practices of UK exchanges ended last week, and is set to result in changes to the regulator’s exchange rule book, according to a document seen by Financial News.

The consultation document read: “Our statutory objectives ... now include promoting effective competition in the interests of consumers. We therefore have a fundamental interest in supervising any [exchange] activity that could discriminate between its members in relation to their access to, or use of, those facilities through fees or charges.”

The FCA details changes to its rule book that are of a “limited” nature, the document said, which would “complement new functions that the UK government has proposed to give us under broader competition legislation”.

Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA, said last year that responsibility for competition would be the single most significant change in the new regulator’s objectives.

David Canning-Jones, a partner in financial services at consultancy EY, said it was important to look at the consultation in a global context.

He said few exchanges have explicit regulations on competition, but “the UK is not alone in asking market participants to consider other factors above commercial gain. For example, Hong Kong’s public interest legislation requires market operators to favour investor interest and public interest over commercial interest.”